2022 | SOHR documents nearly 2,600 forcible/arbitrary arrests and kidnappings across Syria
SOHR calls for immediate release of detainees and disclosing the fate of kidnapped people
While more voices call for revealing the fate of the detainees and kidnapped people across Syria, arbitrary arrests and kidnaps continue amid “timid efforts” by international bodies, like the United Nations and human rights organisations concerned with the Syrian issue.
As a human rights organisation, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitored and tracked kidnappings and arrests across Syria in the past month. In 2022, SOHR documented the forcible/arbitrary arrest of 2,289 people, including five children and 58 women, and the kidnapping of 298 people, including 59 children and 18 women.
In this report, SOHR highlight detailed information on the cause of arbitrary arrests and kidnaps in all zones of influence throughout Syria in 2022:
Arrests
–Areas under the Syrian regime control
986 people, including three children and 30 women, were arrested on different charges, the most prominent of which are “evading the mandatory and reserve conscription in the regime army,” “communicating with foreign bodies,” and “cybercrimes.” Many detainees were released after having paid ransoms, while 220 detainees remain in regime prisons and security centres. The people arrested arbitrarily in regime-controlled areas in 2022 are distributed regionally as follows:
- Damascus and Rif Dimashq: 243 people, including three women.
- Aleppo: 179 people, including nine women.
- Daraa: 147 people, including three children.
- Deir Ezzor: 109 people, including five women.
- Homs: 106 people, including seven women.
- Latakia: 52 people, including four women.
- Hama: 39 people, including two women.
- Idlib: 31 men.
- Tartus: 26 men.
- Al-Hasakah: 19 men.
- Al-Raqqah: 17 men.
- Al-Suwaidaa: 13 men.
- Al-Quneitra: Five men.
–Areas under the control of the Autonomous Administration
293 people, including four women, were arrested on different charges, the most prominent of which are “communicating with foreign bodies, mainly Turkey,” “cybercrimes” and “false complaints.” Most of people, who were arrested in the past year, were released, while nearly 68 people remained in prisons.
Deir Ezzor province topped the list of these arrests with 143 cases, while over 79 people were arrested in Al-Raqqah, 49 in Al-Hasakah and 22 in Aleppo.
–Areas under the control of Ankara-backed factions
962 people, including two children and 23 women, were arrested on different charges, the most prominent of which were “communication with the Kurdish forces, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Autonomous Administration and ISIS cells.” Here is a breakdown of these arrests:
- “Olive Branch” area: 583 people, including two children and 15 women.
- “Euphrates Shield” area and its surroundings: 153 people, including five women.
- “Peace Spring” area: 226 people, including three women.
–Areas under the control of Hayyaat Tahrir Al-Sham and opposition factions
48 people, including a woman.
A monthly distribution of the people forcibly/arbitrarily arrested in 2022 is as follows:
- January: 253 people, including a child and eight women.
- February: 145 people, including a child and eight women.
- March: 106 people, including eight women.
- April: 78 people, including two women.
- May: 126 men.
- June: 125 people, including a woman.
- July: 271 people, including three children and ten women.
- August: 294 people, including six women.
- September: 194 people, including six women.
- October: 211 people, including two women.
- November: 352 people, including a woman.
- December: 134 people, including six women.
In addition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has monitored and tracked the cause of torture victims in 2022, where we have been able to document the death of 112 people under torture in prisons throughout Syria in 2022. The victims are distributed as follows:
- Prisons of SDF and affiliated military formations: Three people, including two women.
- Prisons of Turkish-backed factions: Five people.
- Regime prisons and security centres: 104 people, including three regime army defectors, a fighter from a local faction in Daraa and 38 civilians from eastern Ghouta in Rif Dimashq, whose death certificates were delivered by the Syrian regime to their families in February.
Kidnaps
Beside arbitrary arrests, all zones of influence across Syria experienced scores of kidnaps by unidentified individuals in 2022, with the aim of collecting ransoms in light of the escalating security chaos in all Syrian provinces. According to SOHR statistics, 298 people were kidnapped in the past year; they are distributed regionally as follows:
–Areas under regime control: 93 people, including ten women and 22 children. The people kidnapped in regime-controlled areas in 2022 are distributed regionally as follows:
- Al-Suwaidaa: 22 people, including two children.
- Homs: 62 people, including 18 children and ten women.
- Daraa: Six people, including a child.
- Aleppo: A child.
- Al-Hasakah: A man.
- Damascus: A man.
–Areas under the control of the Autonomous Administration: 45 people, including 34 children kidnapped by “Al-Shabibah Al-Thawriyah.”
Al-Hasakah province topped the list of these kidnaps with 45 cases, while over 34 people were kidnapped in Aleppo, three in Al-Raqqah and two in Deir Ezzor.
–Areas under control of Ankara-backed factions: 148 people, including three children and eight women; they are as follows:
- “Olive Branch” area: 94 people, including two children and six women.
- “Euphrates Shield” area and its surroundings: 23 people, including two women.
- “Peace Spring” area: 31 people, including a child.
–Areas under the control of Hayyaat Tahrir Al-Sham and opposition factions: 12 people all kidnapped in Idlib.
Here is a monthly breakdown of kidnaps across Syria in 2022:
- January: 18 people, including a woman and four children.
- February: 33 people, including three children.
- March: 40 people, including four women and nine children.
- April: 12 people, including a child.
- May: 14 people, including three children.
- June: 15 people, including three children.
- July: 27 people, including a woman and three children.
- August: Ten people, including four children.
- September: 42 people, including a woman and four children.
- October: 16 people, including a woman and two children.
- November: 13 people, including a woman and four children.
- December: 58 people, including nine women and 19 children.
SOHR has verified the cases of arrests and kidnaps mentioned in this report and documented most of the names. SOHR also confidently estimates that the total number of kidnapped people is much higher. However, some victims’ families preferred to keep the identities of their sons secret, fearing persecution and punishment by the bodies that had arrested and kidnapped them.
We, at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), warn against the repercussions of violating and non-complying with international accords signed by Syria, as well as the ongoing indifference by the warring powers in Syria to the issue of detainees and forcibly disappeared. We also appeal to the international community to seriously intensify its efforts to disclose the fate of the detainees and forcibly disappeared people, and identify and hold the perpetrators accountable
SOHR attaches the highest importance to this issue of detainees and always strives to highlight their and their families’ plight and sufferings. SOHR also warns against using “terrorism” as an excuse to arrest politicians and human rights activists, using laws of counter-terrorism to justify arbitrary arrests.
We also call for the inspection of prisons in the entire Syrian geography, especially in regime-held areas, so that the real issue and conditions of detainees are unveiled. Furthermore, the fate of the missing and detainees who have been killed must be disclosed.